


Broken

by Sophia_Bee



Series: Game of Thrones [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Melancholy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 16:39:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18854923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Bee/pseuds/Sophia_Bee
Summary: Brienne at Winterfell after Jaime leaves.





	Broken

**Author's Note:**

> A companion piece to Aftermath. Because it hurts. Always thanks to Leafeylocket. Still weeping.

She is broken. 

There was a time when being a warrior was enough, when living a life of honor and justice was all that she had craved. 

Brienne wakes in their room, in their bed. All she can feel is pain. 

She had seen the lie in his eyes the night he left, the one that had chased him ever since she had met him, and long before. A lie she had believed until she had seen the truth in him. A lie she had tried to fight with no less fury than she wielded Oathkeeper in battle. 

Even Valyrian steel cannot kill a lie so deeply ingrained into one’s soul that it becomes an irrefutable truth. She had told herself the lie was over, that the good she knew was in him had won the battle she had seen raging in him ever since she knew him. 

Then he stayed. 

He had remained in Winterfell and she had found a new oath, one she swore to him every night, mouthing it against his collarbone, whispering it against his skin. She had tried to ignore the melancholy she sometimes saw in his eyes, tried to pretend it was something other than the same ancient wounds that never seemed to leave him. He had remained and she had started to tell herself that this is what her life could be. A life where she had everything she had dreamed of, including the golden lion of Westeros by her side, forever. 

She is broken. 

She does nothing different the day after he leaves then she has the day before. She wakes, trying to ignore the heaviness in her chest, pulls on her trousers, her tunic, and it’s not until she turns to her armor, piled in the corner, that she finally chokes out a sob. Too much of her life is marked by him.

She had not realized how woven together their lives had become, despite all their time apart, despite the fact that he had loved another. Still. Brienne’s head had dips at the the thought of them and the image of him leaving springs unbidden into her mind: the way he had struggled slightly with the fastening on his saddle bag; the way the moonlight had lit him in his traveling clothes; the way his eyes had been shadowed with pain and a deep resignation she knew her words would never reach. He had turned to her, his face flooded with so much self-hatred it made her ache, she felt the bitterness in his words as he listed his sins. 

She had wanted to scream, to sink to her knees and wail so sorrowfully that the heavens would know her grief. For she knew it was goodbye forever and she knew _she_ was not enough to make him stay. 

Still she begged, for she she needed this to be different. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her words, begging him to stay, pleading that _she_ could be enough, had rung in her ears long after he left the courtyard of Winterfell, heading south on the King’s Road. 

_Have you ever turned away from a battle?_

_Not once, my love, for I have never given up on you the way you have given up on me._

She wants to forget him, prays that he might fade into the distance, like Renly had, an injury drifting somewhere in her past that would only sometimes float to the surface. This lesion is fresh and bloody, and she cannot avoid the kind of pain that milk of the poppy might dull but nothing can ever remove. 

She cannot forget. 

His fingers on her armor, deft and skilled, unbuckling her, sliding the gift he had given her a lifetime ago onto the floor gently, knowing its worth to her. His fingers, slipping across her shoulder, down her arm as her own fingers quickly worked the laces of her tunic. His other arm went around her waist, pulling her towards him and Brienne remembers now that she had laughed. Laughed, like a girl, not a warrior. The girl she had never allowed herself to be, even as she approached what might be the winter of her life, even though she had seen more than any girl had in her lifetime. She laughed. 

Even now the thought makes her squeeze her eyes shut tight, a heat rise to her cheek. It’s not a heat that comes from remembering their lust but the heat that comes from being such a fool. 

She is broken. 

The room is cold. It has been since he left, the one thing Brienne will give to her grief is that in her solitude, when no eyes are watching, when she can no longer hear the whispers that follow her, or see the pity in the eyes of the Lady of Winterfell, she no longer pretends she is strong. In those moments she cannot throw another log on the fire; sometimes cannot even bear to undress before she falls into bed. 

Every day she wakes, dresses, walks besides Lady Stark, her hand on the hilt of Oathkeeper. Every day she sits in the great hall, her face frozen in a scowl, the food she places in her mouth does not taste, only works to sustain. She discusses fortifications of Winterfell, listens to the level of their stores. Every day she pretends. 

There was a time, not long ago, when a chill in the room would have left her in bed, furs piled up, his body warm next to hers. She might have stuck a foot out, testing the air, looking at it with the same wonder she had looked at other parts of her body. She had so long not seen herself as a woman then he touched her, kissed her, left her shaking, and she could only see softness and beauty. Jaime would have stirred next to her, reaching for her, and she would have carefully calculated the time they had, knowing that he would roll onto his side, prop himself up on one elbow, his hair tousled, stinking of sleep and their exploits from the night before, and even before he could try to convince her they had time, just enough time for him to bury his face between her thighs and give her a memory to carry with her for the day, she would kiss him. 

Now the bitter cold of the north, the stiffness in her fingers, the sharp aches that could be remedied with a fire to warm the room, all the lessons she thought she learned, meant nothing. And no matter how cold the room is, no matter the ice that forms a crust on the water she brings in every night, it can never numb her enough. 

She is broken. 

She longs for Tarth, to be gone from this place, this world of servitude and honor she had craved for so long. She longs to be home, to shut herself in her chambers, to again only be the gangly, ugly unloveable daughter of Selwyn, that the world only sees as a jest. She longs to wake in her childhood bed, to wander the vales of her home, to let its familiarity envelope her until she might be able to forget. 

Winterfell feels like chains. 

No one knows how many pieces he has left her in. They lay around her, and sometimes she wonders if she will ever be whole again. 

She is broken. 

~fin~


End file.
